Nick Moorcroft’s 2017 British romantic comedy had its second outing at our Community Cinema. The first time we saw Finding Your Feet was in October 2018, where our blog post confirmed we had Rocky Road as a Rosemary’s Pantry treat. This time it was Karen’s delicious chocolate brownies, which disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Finding Your Feet struck us as a very typical British film. Despite the clunkiness, cliches and coincidences, combined with unbelievable events (would such an amateur dance group get to perform in the Rome biennale?), somehow it grew on us and we enjoyed it. Although Sandra’s new life developed, thanks to her bohemian sister Bif, a lot of us rather liked the mansion she left.
Our audience nearly all were u3a members and this does say something about the film’s appeal. Loss of loved ones, serious illness, time moving on, never too late to make changes, celebrating life…. these themes, we felt, particularly connected with an older audience.
You also couldn’t fault the cast of actors in their ‘golden years’. Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton, Celia Imrie, David Hayman did not disappoint, despite the Evening Standard at the time harshly headlining their review ‘Britain’s Got Wasted Talent.’ Perhaps Joanna Lumley was miscast. She also delivered some great lines but didn’t have enough of them.
We all were with Imelda’s character Sandra, when she finally left her philandering husband (played by John Sessions) as she would ‘betray herself’ if she stayed. The use of drugs (even while driving) symbolised free spirit. Timothy Spall’s character, Charlie, was certainly well named.
Even though the film came out in 2017, at points it felt dated, with moments of unpleasant casual racism. In the final dance sequence, there was also the strange prop use of wheelchairs. These were swiftly abandoned, as sisters Bif and Sandra tossed away their blankets and stood up to boogie to ‘Chantilly Lace.” It signalled that disabled people in dance aren’t that interesting, whereas TV programmes like Celebrity Come Dancing and The Greatest Dancer have shown what disabled people can do.
We commended the impressive Gene Kelly Newspaper Dance, a favourite from our short films. As one member of the group said, he heard music in everything. And amazingly, just by chance, we did have someone in the audience who had been friends with Gene Kelly’s third wife.
Anne
Kommentare